Dimity and me this summer perched in my front yard. Note the splayed daffodil stems, untrimmed hedges, and abundance of weeds. Roses bloom in Portland no matter how much they get ignored.

While I bear more than a passing resemblance to Martha Stewart in her younger days, people are often shocked I have a a fair bit of domestic goddess in me. It’s as if running precludes any homey pursuits: Other mothers stop in their tracks when I mention I cook and bake from scratch; there are many puzzled looks when I admit to needlepointing several pillows on our living room couches. Two of my three remaining magazine subscriptions are Runner’s World…and Bon Appetit. When I get home from a 15-mile training run, I find it immensely satisfying to chop vegetables for a hearty soup, then get warm by stirring in the barley and lentils and checking the flame to ensure a steady simmer. Or to gather the kiddos around to beat the butter and sugar to make tollhouse cookies (and eat the dough without any guilt!).

But the around-the-home hobby I long to immerse myself in is gardening. In our Portland  neighborhood–a patchwork of close-together homes, most on small lots–gardens dazzle the senses for much of the year. Our temperate, moist climate produces a riot of long-lasting, fragrant flowers and shrubs in every imaginable shade of green. I long to have a sumptuous, diverse array of plants in our yard, a mere 50 by 100 feet, yet I’ll be damned if I can find the energy to train for a marathon and maintain a garden. That’s the domestic combination that confounds me.

Yet in the last overcast, damp month, I’ve found myself working out in yard. A few weekends ago, while the kids had two sisters over to play, I finally dug out our post hole digger and went to work planting two dozen daffodil and narcissus bulbs. It was a task I’ve honestly been meaning to do for the last three autumns. Given our dense clay soil, it was demanding physical labor, and my back paid the price the next few days. But I was so filled with pride, I told my parents about it once on the phone and twice in letters! (And, gee, now here I am telling you.)

Then, on Sunday, the moment I finished a 5-mile run, I grabbed a rake and some clippers and spent an hour cleaning out the slanted myrtle beds surrounding our front yard. I was still sporting my orange running vest, and Jack joked I looked like I was fulfilling hours of community service. It was just one more reason to smile as I worked

Later, I finally realized why I’ve had the get-up-and-go-outside urge–and energy–to garden: It’s because I’ve been training for a half-, not a full, marathon. After an 8-, 10-, or 12-mile run, I can shower and attack the rest of the day with a vigor and enthusiasm that’s missing after an 18- or 20-miler. After a long marathon training run, the only bulbs I see are lightbulbs–as I turn on a lamp to read sprawled on our bed, letting the kids play Wii to their hearts’ content. And the only dirt is the celebrity gossip I glean from Entertainment Weekly (the third mag I still subscribe to).

A few months ago, I was so emotionally committed to gardening instead of marathoning, I vowed I’d stick to 13.1-mile races in 2013 so I could get my hands dirty on a more regular basis. But the siren song of a longer race is calling my name, and I’m on the verge of signing up for a May marathon. I’m a domestic goddess in turmoil. Tell me, mother gardeners: How do you balance training with making your garden grow? Or is it an either/or proposition?